"Any Time".."Personal choice" Dining

[red stripe]

Many of us are now looking at the "choose your own time" dining options on cruises, and would like to pick the brains of those that have done this.

Yes, we can ask the individual cruise-lines, but sometimes the information on these things is not quite accurate. far better to get feedback from the passengers that have tried it.

On RCI. how does it work?

Do you have to pre-pay your tips if you want to book this option?

Can you ask for a specific time, specific table for your party?

how about if you want to set a specific time? Do you then have to pre-pay?

Or is it better to just get on board before trying to arrange table and time?

And I am sure that there are other questions that I do not know to ask.

So any feedback on this will be a great help.:thankyou:
​

 

[lizardstew]

I can answer some of these questions for you. I'm booked for "My Time" dining on our Oasis of the Seas cruise that leaves exactly one month from today.

We had originally booked traditional dining and when I contacted my Super Fantastic TA to make the switch to My Time, he said we'd need to pre-pay the tips before the switch can be made. So...I gave SFTA my credit card number, he charged the tip amount and walah! We were switched to My Time Dining.

You can make reservations for one night or for all nights, either once you board or beforehand through your RCCL Booking Dashboard. When pre-reserving online, you see this message:


To make My Time Dining Daily reservations, start by selecting the guest(s) in your reservation, and other reservations, you want to dine with. (If you’d like to dine with guests in additional reservations, you can add them by clicking on “Add Guests from Another Reservation” below.) Note that you will not be able to select any guests who did not select My Time Dining on their booking. Each dining reservation may include up to 10 guests, including yourself.

Next, choose between the two different types of reservations in My Time Dining:

* Dining at different times and/or with different people each day of your cruise
* Dining at the same time with the same people for each day of your cruise

Once you’ve selected your guests and a reservation type, click on the “Confirm Guests” button and you will be taken through each day of your cruise to make your choices.

Then you are given the following options:

Reservations on different times and/or with different people each day of my cruise OR
Reservations for the same time with the same people for each day of my cruise

It looks like there are reservation slots every 15 minutes from 5:30 to 10:00 pm. However every night there are is "no available seating" at 6:30, 6:45, 8:15, 8:30, 9:45 and 10:00 pm. Perhaps they consider these to be the busiest times and don't accepet reservations for them? That's how it was on the Sapphire Princess when we sailed her in December 2005.

You can then designate whether you "prefer a table to yourselves" or "prefer to share a larger table with other guests." Then, you get the following disclaimer:

We will do our best to accommodate your table-sharing preference but cannot guarantee you will be able to dine at a table by yourselves. In addition, because there are a limited number of tables for large parties, we may be able to keep your party together, but not seated together at one large table. For example, if you request a table for 8, you might be seated at two tables of 4. Again, we do our best to accommodate your original request.

Hope this helps!

 

[lizardstew]

Oh, and I forgot to add that if you don't want to make reservations, you just show up at the time you want to eat. You may have to wait a bit in that case.

 

[red stripe]

That was wonderful information..
thanks a whole lot.

may I copy your post into the cruise addicts RCI group cruise board?
this is exactly what we were looking for on this upcoming cruise.

 

[iluvcruzin]

Red, if you wait until you board to switch, they would automatically add the tips to your onboard account. So it's a pay now or pay later sort of thing.

I didn't know they had a pre-selective table assignment choice online. Interesting..

 

[red stripe]

Maureen, that is our predicament.
if it were just E and i, we would wait until we boarded. But we are concerned that trying to book a group at that time might be a chore.

So we nail it down now and pre-pay the tips.. or take a chance and wait until we are all onboard.

I need a drink:cheer:

 

[Donna - dsw]

On our up comming cruise 2/5/11 our T/A told them we all wanted My Time dinning and she requested we all sit at the same table. We are going to pick our time when we get there. As stated we might have to wait 15 minutes or so - - but that will be just enough time for a pre-dinner drink!

They did automatically add the pre tip - which was fine with all of us!

 

[lizardstew]

Sorry for this late response! If you haven't already you are more than welcome to copy this post wherever you would like! You don't even have to ask next time...copy away!

 

[traveltime]

Whenever available, my husband & I book My Time Dining (or Freestyle on NCL, etc.) and we've never had an issue getting a table for 2 whenever we show up for dinner. (We aren't anti-social, just don't have a lot of time to spend together in the real world, so when we are cruising, we prefer to spend time together at dinner.) We booked My Time Dining for our cruise that leaves in a week and prepaid the gratuities. For us, the MTD allows us to come back to the ship from shore whenever we want to - rather than feeling crunched to get back, shower, etc., for dinner. Also, if we don't care for the dining room's menu on night, we don't feel obligated to let tablemates know that we won't be there that evening. Just makes for a more relaxing dinner time for us.

 

[Jeanie]

Sounds like a good choice

 

[Metaknight42]

red from my experience if you pre pay your gratuities ahead of time through a travel agent they will automatically put you on my time unless you get it changed